Helsinki, Finland

Both of us woke up around 3ish from jetlag, which was about the same time as game 4 for the Raptors vs Bucks, so I followed the play-by-play online.

Breakfast was great in our hotel, which was really busy with business types having breakfast meetings (or pre-meetings).

It was a nice sunny day in Helsinki, with a high near 20C. The forecast called for clouds and rain the next couple days, so we went on a 90 minute boat cruise around the islands, included in the Helsinki Card. The scenery reminded us of being in the Muskokas. The boat cruise was a good way to orient ourselves.

Had lunch in the old market on the waterfront, which was quite tasty. Browsed the souvenir stalls and bought a couple small things for our key shelf.

We then walked over to Ateneum, Finland’s premier art gallery. It was cool, including a Van Gogh. (The museum was the world’s first to acquire a Van Gogh).

Ateneum is on a plaza across from the train station with interesting architecture. Took pics of most of the surrounding buildings, lots of Finnish art nouveau.

Got back to the hotel around 4pm. We have a sauna in our room, which is fairly common. They take their saunas very seriously here - in fact, the word “sauna” is Finnish. There’s about one sauna for every two people in Finland.

Pushed the ‘on’ button and then waited an hour for it to heat up. (There’s a little sign in the bathroom with instructions on how to use the sauna - first step, put away your cell phone). Followed the rest of the steps to have a proper Finnish sauna experience!

Tonight we had dinner reservations at Shelter, a restaurant on the waterfront close to where we were earlier this afternoon. We’re becoming quite familiar with the route from our hotel to the waterfront :)

Once again dinner was excellent, and we were glad we had a reservation. For appetizers, we had octopus with romesco sauce and white fish ceviche. For our mains, we tried the linguine with chanterelles, green apples, and pistachios and the grilled perch with roe, new potatoes, and broccolini. Everything was excellent.

We took a different route back to our hotel for variety. The sun was just setting (it was 10pm). Our walk took us past the Helsinki Cathedral, an evangelical cathedral that features prominently in skyline pics. Walked up the many stairs to the top, took a bunch of pics. Got home and crashed.

Toronto to Helsinki

It was easier packing for this trip as we only half-unpacked from our previous trip. We were pretty much ready to go by Sunday, in case we needed to buy anything (we left on Victoria Day and most stores were closed).

Our flight to Amsterdam left 20 minutes ahead of schedule! We also made good time crossing the Atlantic and would have arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule except we couldn’t get a landing slot and circled almost half an hour.

We got through immigration and towards our gate, when Heather realized she had forgotten her reading glasses on the plane. The KLM folks for our Helsinki flight were right on it. They called the cleaning crew and within minutes Heather’s glasses were on their way to us! Heather was pretty excited, although the lost-and-found people seemed even more enthusiastic about returning the glasses than Heather :)

The flight to Helsinki took about 2.5 hours, arriving around 6pm, and then we were on the ground for our next adventure. Everything in the airport was very organized and efficient. Got a (free) cart, got our bags, picked up our 3-day Helsinki Card, bought two train tickets, caught the “I” train to downtown, and finally grabbed a taxi to our hotel.

We had dinner reservations at the hotel restaurant, good thing because it was super busy!

When we researched Helsinki this past week, we realized It is quite the foodie town, and booked dinners for our three nights here to make sure we got into the popular places. One of the food blogs we read also had a review of Tallinn restaurants (our next stop), and we realized that it too is becoming a big food destination. We’ll be there over a weekend, so made reservations for Tallinn too. (I then got carried away and started making reservations for Riga).

Dinner was excellent at our hotel (their restaurant is called Kultá). We started with an amuse bouche of a Jerusalem artichoke soup (excellent, our favourite) and split an appetizer (an assortment of typical Finnish starters). For the mains, Heather tried the grilled Arctic char and I had reindeer two ways (grilled sirloin and salted tongue). Heather’s aperitif was also excellent, sparkling wine with cloudberry. I stuck to their craft beers on tap.

Toronto, Canada

This next trip was planned in less than a week, while we were trying to get ready for the Central Asia trip. We had booked our tickets to Istanbul in late November 2018. Later I found out that my next contract wouldn't start until July, and figured to use the extra six weeks in May / June to catch up on some DIY home projects. But then the Sunday before we left for Istanbul, Heather got an email about our KLM frequent flyer miles expiring this year. So, we had the time, and a free flight to Europe... tiling the basement floor could wait. As we once discussed with Marissa, our friend and occasional travel companion, no one ever said on their death bed, I'm glad I fixed up the backyard fence (although, I do need to fix the backyard gate before we leave).

We've talked about going to the Baltic states for a while. This is first time in a few years that I've had time off over May / June which is our preferred time to visit the area. Belarus and Ukraine are geographically close, so the trip extended south.

The Azores were more of an accidental add-on. We were looking for ways to break up the flight home, and saw a flight through Ponta Delgada direct to Toronto. I wasn't familiar with the towns in the Azores, and had to look up Ponta Delgada. It quickly evolved from a stopover to an 11-day stay on three of the islands :)

I've had to correct myself a few times when referring to Ukraine. It's Ukraine, not 'the' Ukraine. (It's okay to refer to 'the Azores' because that describes a geographical area). There's a good article here on the subject.

We've bought a guide book only for the Azores. We've found we've become less and less reliant on guide books (we didn't have one for Azerbaijan, which was I think the first country we went guidebook-less). Heather still likes them for the historical background they provide, but as far as travel advice goes, the internet's much better and current.

We've had a week back in Toronto, during which we've done a lot of laundry. I fixed up a couple things on the blog that were bothering me -- the pics now display a caption, and are sorted in reverse chronological order.

Toronto, Canada

We're back home in Toronto. For some reason, this trip seemed much longer than six weeks. We've been unpacking our souvenirs and been going 'oh yeah, I forgot about that' half the time. Good thing we keep a blog, so we can remember!

There were a lot of highlights, both ones that made my Top 100 and really cool experiences.

Here's the new additions to my Top 100 list and their current rank:

17 Temple of Bacchus in the Baalbek temple complex, in Baalbek, Lebanon
21 Registan in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
27 Darvaza gas crater, Turkmenistan
35 Great Pyramid, Giza, Egypt (I saw the pyramids 25 years ago, and this was already on the list)
36 Shah-i-Zinda in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
45 Great Hypostyle Hall in the Karnak temple complex in Luxor, Egypt
51 Kalon Minaret, Bukhara, Uzbekistan
54 Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
68 Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan
74 Hagia Sophia Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
77 Painted Churches in the Troodos region of Cyprus

Out of the places on this trip (Egypt, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, and Istanbul), Azerbaijan surprised me the most. There's a lot of variety in Azerbaijan (architecture new and old, mountains, old walled cities, hiking) and it's still off the radar. Uzbekistan is full of highlights in the old Silk Route cities. Turkmenistan was the least touristed, mostly because it's difficult to get a visa.

If I was planning again, I would have included going to Abu Simbel in Egypt, a couple more days in Cairo, at least a week more in Azerbaijan, and planned for a week in northern Cyprus. (The rest of Turkey and more of Istanbul were always planned to be another trip, and the other places I think we planned about the right amount of time).

There was a lot of flying on this trip, but most of the countries don't have land crossings. Istanbul made a great hub for the trip.

We have a world map in the basement where we've pinned all the places we've visited. Every time we come back from a trip we feel like we've been to a lot of places, and then after we add the pins it hardly looks like anything. It's a big world to see :)

Istanbul, Turkey

On one of our previous times through Istanbul, we stumbled across an artist at work in his workshop, his paintings catching our eye from the street. He saw us outside and invited us in. (We only found out later he doesn’t normally do this when working on a piece; we think it might be because as we were admiring his paintings through the window his cats came up to say ‘hello’ and purred at us). Heather googled him later, and it turned out he’s a renowned Turkish artist, Irfan Yavru.

So today we went first to his workshop and then over to his studio. Neither was open yet, but it was also only 10am on a Saturday, I’m sure no self-respecting artist is up at that hour. He had a ‘contact us if we’re closed’ sign in the window, so we went back to our hotel for wifi and sent off a quick email.

Next we stopped into 3rd Culture, a store just down the street from our hotel. There were excellent photos on the walls from many cool travel destinations, half of which we had been to and the other half on our list. The owner came over and introduced himself (he’s also the photographer and a journalist). Chatted some more and found out his wife is from Leslieville (!), our neighbourhood in Toronto. Small world!

We bought a couple lamp shades for the bedroom, which were packaged in sturdy hat boxes. Guess we’ll have some extra carry-on :)

Stopped into a few more shops in the neighbourhood and then went back to the art studio again. This time the studio assistant was there, so the three of us walked over to the workshop to check out the painting we wanted. Irfan (the artist) was out of town so the assistant was also the friendly cat sitter :)

The assistant said he needed to call Irfan about the painting. Apparently there was an American buyer also interested in the piece. We could only hear half the conversation, and in Turkish at that, so we didn’t know if we would be able to buy it until after the call ended.

Turns out the ‘American buyer’ was actually Heather! The artist remembered us visiting a few weeks ago and expressing interest in the piece. Then when he got the email we sent earlier in the morning, he assumed that Heather was American :)

With all that cleared up, we agreed to buy the painting. The assistant asked us to return to the studio later in the day. In the meantime, he would prepare it for travel.

Had lunch at another great pide place (although we walked a lot today, so far we hadn’t ventured more than 10 minutes away from the hotel).

Later in the afternoon, there was a huge thunderstorm and downpour. We tucked inside a shop and didn’t get too wet.

Got back to the hotel mid-afternoon and did a big repack for the trip home. Over each leg our trip, we’d been accumulating souvenirs, which we just stored in left luggage in at our Istanbul hotel. Now we finally had to pack them for our airline flight.

Joined the hotel owner, Bulent, downstairs for happy hour, and chatted with him for a while. He really did make it seem like ‘a home away from home’ while we were here.

For dinner, we tried another mezze place, Ficcin Restoran, recommended by Bulent. It was a down a little alley, very atmospheric, and filled with locals. It was a great meal to finish off our trip!

Istanbul, Turkey

Finally we had a day to see Istanbul! Actually we had two full days, but we wanted to spend most of the 2nd day doing some shopping. Unfortunately, the forecast called for rain both days. Oh well. (We plan to come back to Istanbul at some point in the future and will spend more time in the city then).

Took the streetcar to the historical centre, across the Köprüsü bridge. It was easy enough to add some money to our transit card (the hotel gives the empty cards out to guests) and use the card. It took less than 10 minutes to get to the main tourist sites by public transit.

We first went to Topkapi Palace as I wanted to get some tourist-free pics here. Bought our tickets, including the extra ticket for the chamber rooms, and entered. There was no line up for security this early in the morning (about 10am).

Headed straight for the chamber rooms, which we had all to ourselves, so I was able to get my pics :) The rooms were cool, well worth the extra $7.

The rest of the palace was busier as the tour buses arrived. The Lonely Planet section for Istanbul was great. We actually used it as a guide on how to get around Topkapi (and the other sites here too), which is I think a first for us on this trip. Using a guidebook as a guide - what a concept.

Next up was the Hagia Sophia Museum. There was a 20 minute wait to enter when we arrived. We could have bought the “Visit Istanbul” pass, but I had done the math earlier, and it wasn’t worth it for what we were planning to see. In theory, the pass allows you to skip the lines, but you just skip the ticket line and still have to wait in the security line.

Unfortunately, half the museum is being restored right now, and we couldn’t get the large sweeping views of the interior, which I think is the main attraction. It was still somewhat cool, especially the view from the upper level.

Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed, which was the same feeling I had for most of the main tourist attractions we saw in Istanbul. The amazing street life here more than made up for that though! Istanbul is up there in the top cities for both me and Heather.

The Basilica Cistern was right across the street from the Hagia Sophia Museum, so we went there next. There was about a 15 minute wait to enter (it was also the only place that didn’t take credit card). The cistern was alright, a bit smaller than I had pictured.

We tried to squeeze in the Blue Mosque before lunch, but we just missed the window between prayer times, so wandered down the street a bit and stopped at a pide place filled with locals. (There’s a Turkish pide place just up the street from us back home in Toronto, so we knew pide was a kind of pizza). The folks there were really friendly. We filled up on pide and börek (a baked pastry filled with cheese, spinach, or meat). Had a coffee and baklava after (they went down the street to the nearby cafe to get the dessert).

We still had some time before the mosque reopened for visitors, so explored around the Grand Bazaar a bit. It’s one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. I found it a bit sterile compared to some of the other souqs and markets we’ve seen this trip. It was also pretty warm ‘inside’.

The Grand Bazaar is a bit of a maze, so we took a random street to find an access point to exit the market.

We got in line for the Blue Mosque, more correctly called the Sultan Ahmet Mosque. This was our longest line up of the day, about 30 minutes. It’s free to enter, but there is a lineup because of the time it takes for everyone to take off their shoes and go through security. Small plastic bags (like the fruit and vegetable bags at a grocery store) were provided for shoes, which was nice.

Once inside, we realized that it was also under major restoration. The entire dome is covered in scaffolding, so we got neither the view of the blue tiles, which gives it its nickname, nor the sense of a big open space.

We still had time to get to Süleymaniye Mosque before the next prayer time, so we rushed over. The research Heather did suggested this was one of the more impressive mosques to see.

There was no line up at all to enter when we got there. It’s a very impressive mosque. It’s hard to say if it would be better than the Blue Mosque once the restoration work is complete. But the lack of tourists made it a much better experience. The mosque also had ambassadors at the front answering questions about the mosque and Islam in general which we thought was amazing.

Caught the streetcar back home to our hotel. Stopped in at a few boutique shops along the way. There’s a lot of cool little stores in our neighbourhood (Taksim) and on our street (Çukurcuma).

Got back home and realized it was happy hour at the hotel (they host a happy hour on the weekend), so had a drink and some small bites before showering and heading out for dinner.

We tried to get into the same place as last night, but they were full, so tried a random place on the same street. The lack of any locals should have been the tip off that it was the Captain John’s of the area (that’s a former restaurant / tourist trap in Toronto. I felt bad that was the impression tourists were getting of Toronto). Anyway, at least the food was edible at this place, and the service and wine were good.

The next day Heather checked her iPhone, and we were amazed to find out we had walked 19km (even with taking the streetcar)! My ankle started to get a bit inflamed near the end of the day, the first time on this trip it’s acted up. Overall, though, it’s done pretty good to date. I’ve even been carrying both backpacks without a brace and with no ill effects. The cobblestone streets are a big help for engaging all the stabilizers, which is great for my ankle and Heather’s back.

Baku to Istanbul

Had breakfast, finished packing our bags, and caught our taxi to the airport. Baku International isn’t a busy airport, so got there only two hours ahead of our flight. The check-in didn’t actually open until after we got there!

Got through security (water allowed) and immigration, and then into the general lounge area. It’s the nicest non-business class airport lounge that I’ve been to so far. Granted, there’s far fewer passengers here, which makes a difference. We were almost disappointed to hear our plane called for boarding :)

It was a comfortable Turkish Airlines flight back to Istanbul. The flight was about 2.5 hours, perfect for watching a movie. (I finally watched the Lego movie; the cast of the Lego movie did the safety videos on Turkish Airlines, so I now get the inside jokes in the safety video).

We got through Istanbul airport in record time, under 40 minutes from landing to getting into a taxi. If we hadn’t had the farthest baggage carousel (yet again), it would have been even faster.

Traffic was excellent too, which meant we had some time to get out and enjoy Istanbul when we arrived. First though, the hotel owner offered us coffee, which we had out on the front patio. He then brought out a birthday cake for Heather! which was very nice of him. He had noticed her birthday when we registered with our passports.

Later we walked around the pedestrian shopping area, towards the Galata Tower. There was a long line to go up to the top (a two hour wait?), so we declined and continued exploring. There seemed to be another cool little street with shops and cafes filling up every nook and cranny down every street we turned!

By the time we got back to the hotel it was already after 7pm. The long summer day threw us off with the time... We cleaned up and headed out for dinner at a much more acceptable time of 8:30pm :)

We ate at Asmalı Cavit, a mezze place recommended by our hotel. We got seated upstairs, at one of the last tables available. At first we had flashbacks to the claustrophobic table in Tyre, Lebanon, but it turned out to be an excellent table.

The restaurant was crowded with mostly locals. The cold mezze was served dim sum style, with a cart wheeled up and the dishes served based on what we pointed to. The food was really tasty and pretty healthy too.

We also had a hot mezze, fried calamari, but we should have gone with the healthier grilled version.

Half of what we ordered was based on what the table of five beside us was eating. They were really friendly, telling us to ‘eat what we eat’ :)

Thought about dessert, but we were full, so got our bill and headed home to sleep.

Baku, Azerbaijan

Had breakfast a little after 9am, then headed out for a full day of touristing in Baku. There’s a lot to see here, and we could have easily have spent a couple more days just in Baku. Yesterday, we planned out the highlights we wanted to see.

First up was the Heydar Aliyev Center. It’s a building designed by the architect Zaha Hadid, whose work we first saw in Rome (the MAXXI museum). After we googled her work, we now have her buildings as one of the criteria for choosing a place to visit. (She died in 2016). In fact, we chose to come to Azerbaijan over Kazakhstan for this leg of the trip because of the Heydar Aliyev Center.

We took a taxi over to the Center around 10:30. Took some outside pics, then bought our tickets to enter. Unfortunately, it didn’t actually open until 11am, so we walked fully around the building to get all our outside pics. It was pretty foggy, but the fog provided nice lighting, it was thick enough that there wasn’t a glare in the background.

The building itself is amazing - it’s now my favourite in the world! It looks like it rose out of the ground. There are no straight lines in the whole structure.

At 11am we entered and walked up the great staircase to the 2nd floor. The curves and full white give the illusion of being inside a white infinity. We were lucky to be one of the first in, as we got pics of just us on the stairs. Later, the stairs were quite busy, and not the same pic quality.

The Center houses a museum (amongst other things), which is very well curated. We spent over 90 minutes going through, but could easily have spent a full afternoon.

The inside of the building is a continuation of the outside. You really do feel it’s the same building.

Took another taxi back to the old city. We were planning to take the funicular to the Flame Towers, but it was still quite foggy, so instead went for lunch at the same place as yesterday. Had a nice table near the window. Lunch was yummy, various kinds of grilled lamb, including grilled lamb liver and fat, which i really liked.

Walked over to the funicular. The fog was breaking (briefly at least), so we rode up to the top. It drops you right at the base of the Flame Towers, a considerably longer ride than we had thought. We almost just walked up, but that would have taken some energy (and time, which we were short of today). There wasn’t much to do at the top of the funicular, so we just took the next ride back down (1 manat each way).

The Carpet Museum was just across the street, our last destination for the day. It’s in a building shaped like a rolled up carpet, much like the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, which is in a shoebox-shaped building.

The Carpet Museum was very extensive (with 3 full floors), explaining the different styles in each region of Azerbaijan and their origins. It was interesting, but, by the end, we were starting to get out-carpeted.

Got back to the hotel and showered. We tried a different restaurant for dinner, Dolma. It’s in a basement with lots of character, and excellent food. A great way to end our trip in Azerbaijan!

Overall, we were super impressed with Azerbaijan. Neither of us knew what to expect, and, in fact, we didn’t even buy a guidebook for the country. Here’s my list of top things we did / saw in Azerbaijan (we were only here for four nights, so didn’t get to see much):

- Sheki Khan Palace in Sheki
- Heydar Aliyev Center (Zaha Hadid building), Baku
- Village of Lahic
- Walking around the old city of Baku
- Walking along the waterfront, Baku
- Maiden Tower, Baku
- Flame Towers, Baku
- Carpet Museum, Baku
- Eating anywhere

There’s plenty more that we didn’t have time for. Azerbaijan really deserves to be the focus of a trip on its own and not just an add-on like we did.

Sheki to Baku, Azerbaijan

Today was a lighter day. We arrived in Sheki yesterday with enough time to visit the palace and see some of the town, so all we had to do today was drive back to Baku.

It was just as scenic on the drive back, although we both slept on and off this time. It took just over four hours (without taking the turnoff to Lahic) to reach Baku from Sheki.

It was a beautiful day in Baku, sunny and about 22C. Walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Now that we know what to order (and picked a smaller restaurant), the food came out quickly. It was really good.

The rest of the afternoon we relaxed at our hotel and researched what we wanted to see tomorrow. Our hotel is a small flatiron-shaped building, and our room has a nice balcony in the pointy part, which was ideal for relaxing away the afternoon.

Went back to the same restaurant we had dinner at the first night in Baku. We were seated in a different area this time, and it was too well lit with white light :( Tried a local Azeri red wine, which we enjoyed.

After dinner we walked down to the boardwalk along the Caspian Sea. At 28m below sea level, it's the lowest point in Europe. There's varying definitions of boundary between Europe and Asia. I think where we went falls within Europe using the modern definition, which follows the Greater Caucasus watershed. This is our 3rd of the Seven Descents.

Lahic & Sheki, Azerbaijan

Breakfast only started at 9am at our hotel in Baku, so we didn’t get on the road until 10am. Our driver was there a few minutes early, and we were on our way to Lahic!

Aside from Baku, there were a couple other towns we wanted to visit. Lahic, about three hours west of Baku, is a village which still retains the old copper craftsmanship. Another two hours west of Lahic is Sheki, an old city on the Silk route with a beautiful restored palace. It’s similar to some of the places in Iran, which was our original destination for this trip until we realized Canadians can’t easily get visas.

The scenery on the road to Lahic changed from desert-like to lush green as we drove into the valley. The road itself was great, a divided highway for most of the way. After the turn off to Lahic, the road got a little narrower, and the scenery got even more spectacular. The valley walls are vertical striations, which I guess was caused from the earth breaking off into the valley and falling sideways. I’ve never seen anything like that before.

When we arrived at the village, we first we had to pay an enterprising old lady a couple of manat. (With the increase in tourism, she rolled a large rock on to the road and set up a make-shift barrier). Our driver hadn’t been to Lahic before (tourism is still a bit new here), so we just drove towards the village centre. There’s only one road in to town, so it wasn’t like we needed directions.

It was obvious when we arrived at the ‘centre’, really just the part of town where the shops were clustered. It was a very quaint village, with original cobblestone and stone houses. There were a couple places where blacksmiths toiled away. About half the stores catering to tourists were selling generic stuff, but the rest had some better quality products, including copper, tea, spices.

We browsed around, bought an old copper pot, and watched a couple of blacksmiths at work. It’s a very photogenic village.

Next up was the drive to Sheki. We passed by roadside stalls selling colourful pickled fruits and vegetables. Had some freshly-made qutab, a thin crepe-like bread with a filling, in this case herbs, from a stall for lunch. It was delicious!

We reached Sheki just before 5pm, with enough time to see the Palace of Sheki Khan. So we dropped off our stuff and walked over, about ten minutes up and down rough cobbles.

The palace is beautiful, well worth the effort to get here. Unfortunately, photos are no longer allowed inside :( , which must be a recent change since all the travel blogs I read before had nice pics. The stained glass and detailed wall paintings are awesome.

We walked down the main street a bit looking for souvenirs. Heather bought a hand dyed silk scarf (Sheki is also noted for its silk).

We got back to our hotel, really just a b&b, Ilgar’s place. Met Ilgar, who I’ve been whatapp’ing with the last couple months to organize the excursions. He’s an entrepreneurial guy who’s passionate about promoting community-focused
tourism in Azerbaijan.

Cleaned up and walked about 20 minutes to the heart of town to the restaurant recommended by Ilgar. It was good, although pretty touristy. We should have gone with our initial choice of a local place close to Ilgar’s.

There was a little dog that followed us around most of the afternoon in Sheki - to the palace, shopping, and then down to dinner. Heather saved some of her leftovers for our companion (a real doggie bag!), but we didn’t see our dog after dinner. On our walk over to dinner, one of the shopkeepers we saw earlier was laughing and joking with us when she noticed that the little dog was still following us around :)

Istanbul to Baku

We were up very early at 5am to catch our flight to Baku, the last leg of this trip. Our taxi arrived at 5:30am and whisked us off to the airport.

By now we were pretty familiar with Istanbul’s new airport and quickly made our way to the gate. Grabbed a couple cappuccinos and banana bread for breakfast and waited for our flight. Used the time to catch up on my blog.

My in-flight entertainment screen had a bug, and I could only choose movie # 6 from any genre. Ended up watching I, Robot, which was okay.

We were in the 2nd row of economy and walked quickly to be one of the first through immigration. Our flight was the only one in arrivals and all the ground crew and immigration folks worked their way to their posts as we arrived. I think there were more staff than passengers!

Immigration was easy with our evisas in hand. (Canadians can get a visa-on-arrival, but it’s an extra step at the airport if you don’t have one). Azerbaijan is really promoting tourism, and it looks like they take that all the way, starting with arrivals and immigration.

There were only four baggage carousels, so it was easy to grab our bags. Through the exit I could see our driver with my name on a sign, maybe 25m from the carousel, so didn’t bother with a cart :)

There was a bit of traffic as we approached the old city. An organized run was in progress (we saw the bibbed runners going by), and the week before the city hosted an F1 race; the race barriers were still up, blocking some roads.

The architecture on the drive in was amazing. Our heads were on swivels looking at all the cool buildings. We even drove right past Zaha Hadid’s building! (The Heydar Aliyev Center was one of the reasons we chose to come here).

Our hotel, the Deniz Inn Boutique Hotel, was in the heart of the old walled city, close to the Maiden Tower (we even had a view of it from our room). Only narrow alleys led to the hotel, so our driver parked at the closest approach and we walked the rest of the way.

We dropped our stuff in our room, applied sunscreen, and headed out for lunch. Picked a restaurant that rated highly on google, with a nice patio overlooking the cobblestone street. We didn’t have a guide book for Azerbaijan, and hadn’t done any research on food etc, so ordered randomly. The salad and mezze were good, but the hot dish took a while to arrive (we figured out later that it’s not a common dish to order for lunch).

After lunch we walked inside the perimeter of the old city wall to orient ourselves. There were lots of little cafes and shops tucked into corners and alleys. Stopped at a little cafe for coffee and snack. All the outside seating was occupied, but they set up another table for us in the shade.

The cafe didn’t normally take USD (but did for us), so we found an ATM and got some manat (the local currency). Azerbaijan seems to be well connected to the international networks, we never had any issues with ATMs or using credit cards.

Got back to our hotel and rsvp’d with our place in Sheki. We were going there tomorrow and had organized a driver and excursion through our homestay in Sheki. Given that there wasn’t car access to our hotel in Baku, I wanted to make sure the driver had the right phone number so they could call the front desk for directions.

For dinner, we tried a place (Firuze) outside the old city. Normally we don’t leave the city walls since it’s usually less atmospheric, but in Baku, the surrounding streets are the hip part of town, with wide pedestrian-only streets filled with locals.

The traditional restaurants in Baku are in basements, with tables in the old nooks beneath archways. Very cosy!

Dinner was great! Heather had done some research before dinner, so we knew what dishes to try, and all were really tasty.

North Cyprus to Istanbul

Today was one of the better transit days on this trip. Our flight was at 11am, so we could wake up at a reasonable time. The hotel staff was really nice, starting breakfast a bit early so we could eat before grabbing our taxi to the airport. The breakfast was excellent too!

Technically, this was a domestic flight, but it was a bit like flying from Hong Kong to Beijing. Still had to go through customs and immigration on both ends. The flight left 15 minutes early (I guess everyone was there, so they took off).

We flew into the old domestic airport in Istanbul, which was showing its age. It’s about an hour east of the city centre, on the Asian side of Istanbul.

The hotel owner came out to greet us warmly as our taxi pulled up. (This is our 4th stay at the Hotel Hamamhane so far). He really makes the hotel feel like home. He even gave us laundry pods for the washer in our room!

We put in a quick load of laundry and went for lunch next door. Had to wait a couple minutes for a table and then got seated. Lunch was really nice outside on the patio. Made reservations for dinner there as it was a Saturday; we didn’t want to venture too far as we had an early start the next day.

It was still early afternoon, so decided to walk into the historical centre, just to get some exercise. The streets were packed with people, it definitely felt like a city of 20 million!

Got back home, showered, and finished our laundry. The hotel has a happy hour on the weekend, so went down for a drink and small snacks before dinner.

Went back to the same restaurant for dinner. It was okay, but think we’ll start branching out more when we get back to Istanbul and have more time at the end of our trip.

Niçosia, North Cyprus

We had a small breakfast before packing up and heading on to Niçosia. We (now) saw all the signs to Apokryfo (our hotel) along the way on the highway that we had missed on our way in to Loufou because we came in from Avdimou instead of straight from Lemosos.

First, we dropped off the rental car at the Larnaca airport. (I originally looked for a rental agency that allowed drop off in Niçosia, but didn’t find anything).

We were about 20 minutes late with the drop off (the rental company just meets their clients at departures), and he had already left. The traffic attendant at departures was really nice; he even called the rental place for us, and less than ten minutes later someone came by and picked up the car. They didn’t do any checks for damage or anything (similar to São Tomé), just jumped in the car and drove off.

Next we went to arrivals to get a taxi to Niçosia. There was a bit of traffic as we got to the city. We got dropped off at the foot of Ledra St, a busy pedestrian street, and the most popular pedestrian border crossing. I finally got to use the backpack straps on our packs, as it was about a 500m walk to the border. (Otherwise we’ve just been using our packs in suitcase mode).

There was minimal passport control to leave South Cyprus. Walked about 100m through the buffer zone, then entered North Cyprus. There was no stamping of passports or anything to enter; the immigration officials on both sides were very laissez-faire about the whole deal (Heather even ran back to ask if we needed a stamp to fly out the next day). There were lots of day trippers going to north Niçosia, so that’s probably why.

Our hotel (Djumba Hotel) was another 500m from the border crossing, mostly on pedestrian streets. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we dropped off our bags, got some lunch recommendations, and headed out.

We walked back through the pedestrian areas, filled with beach tourists on day trips looking for cheap knockoffs. Ugh.

Anyway, the restaurant (Saraba) was really cool, located in a courtyard just outside Selimiye Camii, shaded by flowering trees. They really know how to create ambience here (by ‘here’ I guess I mean anywhere outside Canada / US).

Explored around north Niçosia a bit, but the day trippers were getting annoying to us, especially with the lack of respect for being in another country / culture / religion. Büyük Han (a caravanseri) was okay, but it looks better in promotional pics.

We walked around the Arapahmet quarter, which had some really cool architecture. Half of it is in need of repair, but from the signage around, it looks like they have a master plan to restore the whole area. It will look really nice when it’s done. Even in its current state, it was one of our favourite parts of north Niçosia.

It was nearing 4pm, so we wandered back to our hotel, had a refreshing lemonade, and checked into our room. It was on the small side, but was functionally excellent.

We went for dinner at Sabor, an Italian / Spanish place, also recommended by our hotel. It was very busy on a Friday night, and we were lucky to get in. The food was good, although part of that might have been the break from our usual village salad and grilled lamb :)

Lofou, Cyprus

Another day, another set of Byzantine-era churches! There’s 10 churches listed as UNESCO sites; yesterday we saw three, and today we intended to see another five.

We got up a bit earlier so that we could arrive at the first church closer to 10am.

We saw Archangelos Michail in Pedoulas, Nikolas tis Stegis in Kakopetria, and Panagia tis Podythou in Galata. All were excellent, although I’m writing a couple days later, so it’s a bit fuzzy.

The drive from Galata to Kalopanayiotis was within 10km of the buffer zone with North Cyprus, and we saw a couple UN vehicles. We also saw the sea off in the distance. I hadn’t realized we were so far north on the island.

In Kalopanagiotis, we visited the Agios Ionannis Lambadistis Monastery, one of the larger sites. It was impressive!

We stopped for lunch in town and had some more grilled lamb, which again was excellent.

Then off to Moutoullas to see Panagia tou Moutoullas. Unfortunately, it closed at 3pm for the day.

Overall, we saw seven of the ten UNESCO churches, and we were glad that we did. They’re still somewhat off the radar (we had them mostly to ourselves). Due to the small roads to get to most of them, they probably won’t be on the bus tour route anytime soon. We did run into a group of about 20 traveling in multiple cars, but that was about it. The paintings in the churches reminded us of the rock hewn churches in Tigray, Ethiopia.

We got back home and relaxed before heading down for dinner. Fortunately for us, our final course didn’t arrive, so we had a much better portioned meal. (It’s a set price for a multiple course dinner, so over the three days we’ve gotten better at excluding some dishes).

Lofou, Cyprus

May 1 is a national holiday in Cyprus, and we had originally planned to just relax, walk around the village (they have a 1km waking tour!), and catch up on reading / blogging.

But after chatting at breakfast with the manager, the consensus was that the UNESCO Byzantine-era churches would likely be open. They were clustered around the Tröodos mountains, the nearest about an hour away. In any case, even if they were closed, it would be a nice drive.

The church hours were sporadic, but were generally open between 10am-1pm and then 3-5pm. It was already 10am when we decided to head out, so we quickly got ourselves together and on the road.

The car had about a half tank remaining, and I wasn’t sure how common gas stations would be in the mountains, so we filled up at the first gas station we saw. Because of the holiday it was unattended, but it had self-serve automation. Took a while to figure out the process, but we managed to fill our tank.

First, we visited Timios Stavro in Pelendri. The churches themselves are mostly small, with seating for maybe 30. They are painted floor to ceiling and most still continue as working churches (although some just for special occasions). The churches are from the Byzantine era, between the 11th - 14th centuries.

(I later googled about the Byzantine empire. At its peak, it stretched from Rome to Azerbaijan, around the Mediterranean, and Egypt. Between our Christmas trip to Rome and this trip, we’ll have covered the empire :) )

There was no fee to enter each church, so we just left a small donation at each one.

Next, we drove to Stavros tou Agiasmati in Platanistasa. We were on some very small roads, single lane around blind turns hugging the hills.

Finally, we saw Panagia tou Araka in Lagoudera.

I can’t say enough about offline google maps for driving. It would have been a much more difficult journey without it. We also had to cross-reference the Lonely Planet with the web to find the right places. There’s multiple churches with similar names, so if you search by name in google maps, you’ll likely end up at a different church. So we searched for the town, zoomed in on the map, clicked on the church, and then got directions. In some cases, there was also signage in the town leading to the church too.

On the way back, we stopped in at a random busy roadside restaurant. It was full of local families out celebrating the May 1 holiday. The manager was amazed that we were visiting from Toronto. (He and his family actually lived in TO for a bit). He took us into the kitchen to introduce us to his mom, announcing us as ‘tourists from Toronto!’. It was a buffet lunch, although we focused on the grilled lamb, which was their specialty, and was excellent. The cheesecake was great too.

Drove back to our hotel. We had intentions to do the walking tour of the village, but just as we set out, it started raining. We decided to take a nap to wait it out, but by then we had no get-up-and-go left, so just cleaned up and went down for a drink and then dinner.

Dinner was excellent again. We’ve kept trying to not over order, but everything sounds so good (and is good!)

Lofou, Cyprus

We had a nice breakfast in the interior courtyard at the Library Hotel. The temperature overnight dropped to 16C, it was very pleasant in the morning sitting outside.

Checked out and packed up our little Suzuki. We realized we never actually had a drink or sat and read a book in the library while we were here :(

We were moving to a hotel in the wine region today and doing some touristing along the way.

First, we backtracked about 5km to see the Neolithic ruins at Choirokoitia. There was only one other couple at the site when we arrived. I asked the rather boisterous ticket guy if they were open tomorrow (just to get a sense of what might be opened or closed on May 1, a national holiday here). They were open, but he said he didn’t want us to assume that other places would be open.

The ruins themselves are a UNESCO site, the first evidence of inhabitants on the island. It’s a 15 minute walk around and up a hill for the full view of the excavations. A nice little detour.

Then we got back on the A1 and drove to Limassol. Here it goes by the transliteration of the Greek name, Lemosos, which we didn’t know when we first arrived. Luckily we just followed google maps, and not directions to ‘Limassol’.

Our destination was the Lemosos boardwalk, which is at the west end of the sprawling city. We parked on a side street approaching the boardwalk, took a screenshot of google maps in case we forgot where we parked, and walked down.

There’s all kinds of cool coffee shops, bars, restaurants, galleries, and pedestrian walkways just north of the boardwalk. The boardwalk itself is really nice, and well used even on a weekday at noon.

For lunch, we drove about 15km west, to a beach near Avdimou, a Lonely Planet recommendation. At the end of a 2km winding single lane road is Kyrenia Beach Restaurant, on a secluded beach with nothing else around.

The restaurant staff were really friendly. We grabbed a table overlooking the beach with the sea air blowing through.

This time we remembered to ask what fish were local. Heather had the grilled sea bass and I had the fried small fish. Both were simply prepared and mmm excellent.

After lunch we drove up to our hotel, Apokryfo, in the small village of Lofou (population 300). There were beautiful views along the way of the hills and valleys. They could probably film car commercials on these roads.

Because we were coming from Avdimou, a little west of Lofou, rather than approaching from the east, there was no signage for the hotel. Instead google maps took us through back streets in the village. Twice we ended up in places ending in stairs or roads too narrow to pass, and I did some 7-point u-turns. Finally, we worked our way around the outside of the village and towards the hotel. The last stretch looked a bit iffy if I had to back up, so Heather got out and walked up to check. It was indeed the Apokryfo!

We checked into our room, which had great views of the vineyards in the distance. We also had a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the hotel.

The hotel didn’t have laundry service, so we washed just our small stuff. Jeans would need to wait until we got back to Istanbul :(

The sun was just about setting, so we went up to the rooftop to watch the last little bit of the sun. The rooftop overlooks the village, which is bowl shaped from the hills.

A couple of other guests were having sundowner, and we chatted with them for a bit. Almost all the other tourists here are from Europe, which makes sense given the proximity (and that they use the Euro here).

We had dinner at the restaurant. It’s very highly acclaimed, and deservedly so. Had some mezze, then some hot plates, and finally a goat dish. Everything was excellent. We ate far too much (again!) :)

Kalavasos, Cyprus

It was Easter Monday in Cyprus and most things were closed. We had a leisurely breakfast and then went for drive around the scenic villages near us.

Drove through Vavla, Kato Drys, and Kato Lefkara. We tried to visit a bee and honey museum, but it was closed for Easter. Actually everything was pretty quiet. The villages were definitely scenic; the drive was up and down and around hills, which was scenic too. Some of the roads through the villages were barely a car width wide. And a lot of stretches on the road were only one lane wide. We saw maybe ten cars the whole time on our drive, so it wasn’t an issue with oncoming traffic.

Drove down south for lunch at Zygi. There’s a handful of restaurants overlooking the water on the boardwalk, all of them booked out by locals because of the holiday. We luckily managed to get a table for two at the Captain’s Table restaurant. Ordered and ate way too much food as usual on this part of the trip. The food was excellent. We had a local white wine called ‘Ezousa’, which we had to try since it was so close to my name.

After lunch we walked along the boardwalk for a bit after all the overeating. The fishing boats were all in the harbour and made good subjects for pics.

Drove back to our hotel in Kalavasos. The village was setting up for a shindig of sorts in the main plaza, and it seemed like everyone in the village was there.

Had a drink in a cafe overlooking the plaza and watched the scene.

We had dinner at our hotel again, and this time tried their lamb. It was doused in a sauce, which I suppose some people like, but it’s not our preference. The lamb, however, was great.

Lebanon to Cyprus

Our flight to Cyprus wasn’t until the evening, so we had another half day in Beirut. We kept thinking we were flying back to Istanbul before Cyprus. The reason we actually ended up coming to Lebanon this trip was because there weren’t any direct flights between Turkey and Cyprus (for obvious political reasons). So, we had to fly through a third country. Lebanon was geographically convenient and also on our list of places to see.

Today was Easter in the Orthodox Calendar (of which I’ve now learnt there are three: the Julian, Revised Julian, and Gregorian). I wasn’t aware before our trip that the orthodox holidays were significant in Lebanon. There’s a large Armenian community here.

Anyway, it meant that a lot of things were closed today. We had plans to visit both the National Museum and the nearby MIM museum, about a 45 minute walk from the hotel. We figured even if they were closed at least it would be a good walk.

We took the back streets through residential neighbourhoods using Google Maps as our guide. It’s easy now to download maps for offline use. Driving directions are also calculable offline, but walking directions need the web (you can look up directions while still on wifi, but you can’t do anything else in maps or you’ll lose the track).

It was a much hillier walk than I had thought, also one of the warmer days here, about 26C.

We reached the National Museum, but it was closed. There were other tourists also in the same boat, including a tour group (!) which should have been more aware.

It took only a couple minutes to walk to MIM from the National Museum, luckily it was open! It’s a mineral museum (a systematic collection of all mineralogical species), which was really cool to see. It was way more interesting than we were expecting. Along with the minerals, it contains rare fossils (sourced from the fossil museum we saw in Byblos), including a pterodactyl! We ended up spending a couple hours at the museum.

Walked back towards our hotel and stopped for lunch at Kalei, the same coffee shop where we had dinner the other night. It was a good place to relax for a couple hours.

After that we picked up our bags at the hotel and caught our pre-arranged taxi to the airport.

Getting through Beirut International was long and tedious. First, the line up for the initial security screening. Check in was quick though. Next, the immigration line. This was the longest part, but it was a quick exit stamp once we got to an official. Next, the boarding security check. Finally, we were at the gate, about two hours after arriving at the airport.

Our flight to Cyprus took 45 minutes. We were able to prebook seats and, given how early we booked, were able to get seats 2A and 2B, which meant we were first off the plane and, more importantly, first in line at immigration. Cyprus is part of Schengen, so no visa is required for Canadians.

Got some Euros, picked up our bags, and exited. Our car rental guy (who was meeting us with the car) was slightly late, so we had a couple minutes to worry before he showed up. It was quick to get through the paperwork and into our Suzuki Swift. By now it was dusk and the mosquitoes were out in full force in the parking lot, thick as thieves, stealing our blood.

By 8pm, less than an hour after landing, we were on our way! It wasn’t the best way to get back into driving, at night, on the left side of the road, in an unfamiliar car, with road signage we couldn’t read, but we made it to our hotel without a u-turn, thanks to google maps.

We had booked dinner at the hotel at 9pm, so dropped off our bags, quickly freshened up, and went down to eat. Dinner was okay. I ordered the salmon; Heather had the sea bass. Realized later that the salmon wasn’t local. Oh well. It was a long day.

For those counting (Gerry, Tanya), Cyprus is country number 83 for me and 41 for Heather.

Jeita Grotto & Byblos, Lebanon

We had another excellent breakfast at Baffa House. It’s been one the better breakfast places on our trip - it varies and hasn’t included eggs every day!

We had another day trip today with our favourite driver, Rita, to visit the Jeita Grotto and Byblos (another common day trip from Beirut).

We almost skipped out on visiting the grottoes based on the descriptions we had read. There aren’t many pics on the web; the site was very strict about its no-photo policy (not exactly sure why). But, as luck would have it, on the flight over to Beirut, the safety video had images of the major tourist sites in Lebanon, and the Jeita Grotto looked cool. The lesson here is to always pay attention to the safety video on flights, even if you already know how to do up a seat belt!

Jeita is close to Beirut, about a 20 minute drive away. We arrived just after 9am. Bought our tickets and took the funicular to the Upper Grotto. We had to leave our camera and phones in the lockers, then we entered a walkway that led to the cave. The cave is filled with stalactites and stalagmites of all shapes and sizes. They’ve done a great job of the lighting and the pathway. It’s about a 500m walk in and back out the same way. Because we were there right after it opened, it was easy to walk along and enjoy the views.

Next, we took a short train ride (we could have walked in the five minutes that we waited for more passengers) to the Lower Grotto. Same routine as before with cameras and cell phones, and then boarded a small boat, which seated about 12 people, to tour the lower caves. This was cool, too, almost like a Disney ride except it was the real thing :)

As with the Upper Grotto, we retraced the route to exit. Luckily, we were there early in the morning; in the 10 minutes that it took for our boat ride, there was now a line up of a couple hundred people.

We walked back to the parking lot and met up with Rita. There were now dozens of tour buses in the parking lot. I can’t imagine the lineups inside the grottos. If you are traveling here independently, get here right at 9am!

On the way to Byblos, we took a short detour to Harissa, Rita’s home town. It has a nice cathedral and basilica. It was also a nice drive up through the valley, with great views of the Mediterranean.

Then onto Byblos. Rita pointed out the main highlights to visit and dropped us off to explore for the next three hours.

First, we went to the Fossil Museum. Lebanon is one of the best places in the world for sea fossils, which we didn’t know until we got here. The scientifically valuable fossils are in the MIM museum in Beirut; the smaller and more common ones are sold as souvenirs. I bought one, which came with a nice certificate, which included the Latin name. It’s an ancestor of sardines (and Eric loves his sardines :) - Heather).

It was around 12:30pm, so we figured we’d go to lunch early and beat the crowds. Got a great table at Pepe’s, ocean side (prime seats on the Mediterranean on the weekend). We ordered hummus, fattoush salad, octopus salad, and fried calamari. The local white wine was excellent, and the calamari was so good we ordered another! But, before it arrived, they walked around with freshly baked pitas. They were so fresh I got steam burns opening it up! We then filled up on the yummy pita and forgot to leave room for the calamari. Had some Turkish coffee to finish, with the full lunch taking over two hours, but that was kind of the point of why we were here too :)

After lunch we saw the Roman ruins in Byblos, which included a small fort with a tower you can climb for amazing views. We walked around the rest of the ruins, which was made better with all the wild flowers in bloom.

There’s also a souq in Byblos, but it’s mainly a tourist souq, with some atmospheric cafes and small bars.

We met up with Rita and then drove home. It was a cool little day trip, with good variety and great food. Can’t go wrong with that!

We had some time to relax at the hotel before heading out for dinner. Stopped for pre-dinner drinks at the same place as yesterday. The first time we went out here, we forgot that happy hour runs from about 5pm to 11pm. I tried to pay for our drinks with a credit card. The waiter kindly protested, and showed me the bill, which was under $5. Oops. We didn’t make the same mistake today.

We had dinner at Maryool, which was excellent. We finally ordered the right amount of food too!

Sidon & Tyre, Lebanon

Before we got to Lebanon, we weren’t sure if we’d need a couple of days to see the sites in Beirut. We had a full day of touring yesterday, plus another half day planned to see the city on the day we leave for Cyprus. After yesterday we didn’t feel like we needed more time in Beirut so day trip it was.

We booked a driver for a day trip to Sidon and Tyre, both south of Beirut on the Mediterranean. Originally, we planned to do a half day trip to Sidon, but Samer suggested we make a full day of it and include Tyre, a city with both ruins and a nice waterfront /harbour atmosphere.

Our driver from yesterday (Rita) was already booked for an excursion by a couple of guests at our hotel, so we had another driver (it was too bad since we preferred Rita).

It was a quick 45 minute drive to Sidon. First, we stopped by the Sea Castle, which was a small crusader-like fort just off the shore. It was okay, worthwhile as part of a larger visit to Sidon.

Next, we walked around the old city. We visited the Soap Museum, which was more interesting than one might think. Bought some soap at the gift shop, picked up a map of the souq, and then wandered around. For once, the Lonely Planet had something right: the map at the Soap Museum is a good map.

Unfortunately for us, it was Friday and most of the shops in the souq were closed. It was still cool to wander around the narrow alleys and tunnels of the souq. It’s one of the more interesting souqs from an architectural standpoint that we’ve visited.

Back on the road to Tyre (it’s pronounced like the first syllable of tyranny). We first drove 10 minutes past Tyre for a quick visit to Kana, where Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding feast. There’s a grotto about a five minute walk into the site from the parking lot. The views of the valley are nice.

We then drove back to Tyre, to the old port, which is a UNESCO heritage site. Our driver insisted on driving all the way in, which took about 20 minutes longer than if he had parked just outside and let us walk for 200m. He’s been driving for 35 years. I think back when he started out as a driver, driving all the way in to the sites was easy; now it’s just part of his routine.

Samer told us to try the seafood in Tyre. (Oddly, we haven’t seen much seafood on the menus in Beirut at the restaurants we’ve eaten at, even though the city is on the Mediterranean coast). Our driver recommended Phonecia, supposedly one of the best in town. We walked in without a reservation and got the last table, kind of buried in the back of the restaurant. We debated trying another place, but we were more in it for the food as opposed to the atmosphere, so we stayed.

We ordered the grilled sea bass, tabouleh salad, and glass of local white wine each. The wine was excellent! The staff was overwhelmed, and the rest of the meal wasn’t as enjoyable, although the fish was very fresh.

After lunch we walked around the old port town, which is very photogenic. They have some good accommodation options, but when I was initially planning I though it was better to have the five nights in one place and just do day trips.

Met our driver and then spent around 30 minutes driving about 50m out of the old city. Another 90 minutes brought us back to our hotel in Beirut. Our driver was easily distracted by his phone or with just about any bright shiny object; Heather said it was the first time she was genuinely concerned about arriving in one piece. At least we booked Rita as our driver for our next day trip; we probably would have cancelled our next excursion if it was the same driver as today.

We had reservations for dinner today at Mayrig (see yesterday’s blog where we wandered around from restaurant to restaurant looking for a table). It’s a Lebanese / Armenian restaurant, and the food was very good. We’re never sure of portion sizes here, so we usually just ask the waitstaff if it’s the right amount of food. Most times we end up getting the right amount. Our waitress at Mayrig, though, either upsold us or overestimated how much we could eat, since there was way too much food leftover. Oh well.

Beirut, Lebanon

Today we did a walking tour from our neighbourhood to downtown. The vibe changed as soon as we left Mar Mikhael and got closer to the core, much more business-like and sterile. We were glad we ended up booking a hotel where we did!

The highlights of the city centre are clustered around a single block, with churches and mosques and Roman ruins. (Much of the original old Beirut in the downtown, including the old souks, was bombed during the war). For us, the highlights were the catacombs and the remains of an ancient church, discovered by accident under St George Orthodox Cathedral by when it was bombed.

We were tired and didn’t feel like continuing farther west to Hamra (another cool neighbourhood) or to the Raouche Rock, so we just headed back toward our neighbourhood for lunch.

We found a nice little restaurant at the top of a long flight of stairs (Beirut rises up from the Mediterranean into hills). The kitchen wasn’t yet open (it was noon, but people generally don’t have lunch until 2pm), so dropped by the Sursock Museum first.

The museum was interesting, Samer’s aunt and cousin have a prominent exhibit on display, which Heather recognized immediately from her style (Samer also has a piece by his aunt at the hotel).

After the museum, we went back to the stairtop restaurant for lunch. It was a little Italian bistro. We tried their pizza, which was pretty good. Pita bakeries are very common here. It’s the same set up to make pizza, so it’s not surprising that they have an excellent crust.

We browsed the ateliers on the way home, but nothing struck our fancy.

Relaxed at the hotel and then went out for what would be called a sundowner if we were on safari. We tried to get into a couple restaurants, but everything was fully booked, so we made reservations at a couple of spots for the next two nights (Friday and Saturday).

Ended up at the Kalei coffee shop, close to our hotel, on Samer’s list of recommendations. Had a sandwich and split a salad. Both the food and atmosphere were great. It was also a short walk home :)

Baalbek, Lebanon

We slept really well and were up long before our alarms rang. Breakfast was excellent, an assortment of cheeses, tomatoes, mini cucumbers, zaatar, breads, homemade jam (made by Samer’s mother), and some other stuff.

Our driver for the day, Rita, met us at 9am, and we were off for Baalbek, about 90 minutes east of Beirut in the Bekaa Valley. It’s about 15km from the border of Syria. When we were planning our trip, we weren’t sure how safe it would be to travel there, but the locals had no concerns at all. There’s a strong army presence in Bekaa, plus there’s a mountain range on the border.

On the drive up to Baalbek, Rita asked if we’d like to stop by Anjar, the site of more Roman ruins (Anjar Citadel). According to Rita, we had time for the side visit, so away we went!

There were a couple tour buses at the Anjar ruins when we arrived. If it was this busy at a minor ruin, I was now suspecting we wouldn’t be the only people at Baalbek. (When we were planning the trip, all the travel bloggers said that they were the only people at ruins. I think now that’s because they visited in off season).

The Anjar Citadel was a very peaceful ruin, with snow-capped mountains in the distance. It’s not the biggest site, but worth the side trip.

On the way from Anjar to Baalbek, we passed by an abandoned train station (with trains) that had weeds and small trees growing all around it. I should have taken a pic, but, by the time I thought about it, we were too far past and I didn’t want to backtrack.

And then we were in Baalbek! The ruins are in the centre of town. There were hundreds of tourists visiting, but the site is large and it wasn’t overwhelming.

First up was the Temple of Venus, which is the entrance to the ruins. This in itself is pretty cool, but it’s just the start. After you climb the steps, you enter the Great Court, which covers almost four acres. It’s pretty amazing. Then, you climb up 7m on a broad staircase to the Temple of Jupiter (on a platform about 50m x 90m). The remains of the temple are on the platform, where six columns (each 19m tall) still stand. It was under scaffolding when we were there, but you can still see the height of the temple, it was impressive.

And if that’s not enough, then you reach the Temple of Bacchus, which is the most amazing Roman ruin I’ve seen. There are 42 columns (each 20m tall) with really well preserved reliefs. The size and the detail is amazing.

After admiring it from the Temple of Jupiter, we then walked down and around the Temple of Bacchus, and finally into the interior. The size is even more impressive standing at the bottom looking up.

Overall, Baalbek is an amazing ruin complex.

We met up with Rita at the designated cafe where she was visiting with some family members from Baalbek. She pointed out the best things on the menu for lunch. It was mmm good.

The route back to Beirut goes through the wine region of the Bekaa valley, and it’s a common day trip to combine a visit to Maison Ksara after Baalbek. So, this is what we did too.

The winery had an interesting video on the history of the winery, which includes a 2km natural cave system where the wine is aged in barrels. The cool part is that you actually get to tour underground through the caves. I was thinking it would be restricted, what with how carefully they monitor the temperature and humidity levels.

We paid extra for the premium tastings, hosted in a proper wine tasting room. The wines were good, our favourite being the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Drove back to Beirut, showered, and then headed out for dinner at Seza, an Armenian bistro recommended by Samer (our hotel owner). It was really tasty. We also ordered a bottle of Ksara red (now that we know more about the wine).

Beirut, Lebanon

Our flight to Lebanon sounded reasonable at 11:20am, but, by the time we factored in traffic and getting to the airport two hours ahead of time, we still had to get up early and rush breakfast.

Had another trip through the new Istanbul airport. We could write a book on it by the time our big trip is finished :)

We flew to Beirut on Middle East Airlines; it took just over two hours. I used the time to catch up on my blog.

Canadians get a free 30-day visa on arrival, which is just stamp in your passport (no fancy sticker). It took us less than an hour to get through everything and into a cab. Our driver from the hotel was waiting with my name on a sign, and in thirty minutes we were at the hotel.

We booked at Baffa House before Christmas based on the reviews. It’s in Mar Mikhael, a happening part of town with lots of bars and restaurants and cafes spilling to the sidewalk.

The hotel itself is like an art gallery (the owner’s family include several well-known Lebanese artists).

Samer (the owner) gave us a quick overview of places to eat and see in the neighbourhood and in the rest of Beirut. We booked an excursion for the next day and went out to explore.

There’s a definite buzz to the streets in the neighbourhood. We walked around for a bit and picked a random bar to have a drink (Mar Mikhael is in the Christian part of Beirut, and there’s no issues with alcohol).

Later, we had dinner at Enab, one of the places recommended by Samer. We were there at 7ish, about two hours before the locals eat. There were a handful of other people, mostly expats or tourists. We made the mistake of sitting outside and were pretty cold by the end of dinner (it was about 18C outside). There were a few heat lamps, but none near us. Dinner was pretty good. Made our way back home, turned on the heat in our room for a bit, and went to bed.

Istanbul, Turkey

Checking out of the Lotte Hotel was very efficient. We got our boxed breakfasts, they called a taxi for the 10 minute drive to the airport, and we were at the check in counter, all in less than an hour after waking up. The boxed breakfasts were mostly packaged goods, except for an orange, which I ate. Luckily, we were still full from our late post-opera dinner.

There were actually two flights leaving the Tashkent airport for Istanbul at roughly the same time, one a Uzbek Airlines with code share with Turkish Airlines, and the other the exact opposite. We got bounced around three times from counter to counter trying to find the correct one for our flight.

We eventually checked in and got our exit stamp from the immigration folks. All our careful organizing of registration stamps and slips from each hotel was for naught. They just saw the cover of our passports and stamped us for exit. So, all the guide books and any travel blogs written before the mid-2018 aren’t valid anymore. The country’s really opened up to tourism.

It was a long 5+ hour flight back to Istanbul. We originally flew east to Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) to start the journey, and then drove further east to each city along the way in Uzbekistan. We were about as far east as India by the end of it!

On arrival in Istanbul, our baggage carousel was the farthest one (yet again), about 500m there and 500m back. It’s a large airport. At least we figured out the system of how to pay and get a cart. Given how much thought has been put into the UX of the rest of the airport, the poor design of the cart system sticks out.

Got in line for a metered taxi. The traffic was much better today, and we were at our hotel in just under 45 minutes.

Our room wasn’t yet ready, so we dropped off our bags at the hotel (the same one we’ve been using as our base in Istanbul, the Hamamhane in Beyoğlu) and went out for lunch at a restaurant a few steps away. Sat on the terrace and enjoyed the afternoon weather. It was a beautiful day, we hadn’t seen the sun for the past few days. Lunch was excellent!

After lunch, we did a whole bunch of laundry, washing about half the clothes in our packs. It’s very handy having a washer and dryer in the room. (We didn’t realize when we booked that our room was set up as a studio apartment - there are maybe 16 rooms in the whole place, and we’ve loved each of the rooms we’ve stayed in so far).

After lunch, we booked a visit to the 100-year old restored hamam literally next door to the hotel. We booked our appointments before we had lunch.

It was a new experience for both of us. First, we changed (the hamam provided disposable shorts and bikinis). Then, we sat in a marble steam room for about 20 minutes. After, our hamam attendants brought us into the next room, where they scrubbed us with a loofah mitt and rinsed us off. Next, we lay down on the hot marble stone and were covered with soap bubbles and massaged. Another rinse, then our hair was shampooed. The bathing part was now complete. Next, the towelling down with soft Turkish towels, and, finally, off to a dry room where we were provided cold sweet tea and dried fruits. There was also a scented face towel, which we later figured out was to place over our face and relax (aromatherapy). All this takes place in common rooms. The appointments at our hamam, however, are staggered, so there was just one other couple at each step. The whole process took about two hours.

It was interesting to try, although I don’t think hamams are my thing. Heather, though, enjoyed the experience.

Heather was feeling a bit tired from the early wake up and the two hour time change, and she was still full from lunch, so she crashed for the night. I was hungry, so went back to the lunch place next door for a quick bite. Overall, it nice relaxing day and a good start to the next leg of our trip!

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

We had a fun day in Tashkent, doing some urban stuff for a change.

First off was breakfast, and one of the better buffets on this trip. Checked with the front desk about whether we should carry our passports around town, but they almost laughed and said we wouldn’t need them.

We took the subway to Chorsu Market. According to the Lonely Planet, the subways are also vestiges of the bureaucratic past, but that’s no longer the case. There are plenty of police around, but they were all very helpful once they determined we were tourists. They didn’t even care if we took pictures!

The subway stations that we saw were all works of art. The system is also well signed and easy to get around. We had no issues getting to Chorsu Market, even with transferring lines.

Chorsu Market was cool to see. The vendors didn’t mind tourists taking pics, and offered us samples of unusual items that we asked about. Tried a hard crystal-like rock that turned out to be sugar.

The best area of the market was the bakery, although at 11am we caught the tail end of it. Who doesn’t like the smell of freshly baked bread? There was still some bread-making in action, and the bakers invited me for a close-up pic.

Next on our tour was the Central Asian Plov Market. Plov is a local favourite, fried rice with raisins and nuts and other stuff, topped with meat (usually beef or lamb). At this market, the rice is cooked in giant kazans about 10’ in diameter. The plov is good, but really it’s the giant kazans that are the attraction.

We took the subway back towards our hotel and saw a few more beautiful stations.

The History Museum was also on our list for today, conveniently located beside our hotel. It’s pretty good, and the quality of some of the ancient pieces dating from as old as 1 AD was astounding. It was also helpful that we had already seen parts of Uzbekistan, having gone west to east (it’s more usual the other direction).

After the museum, we stopped at a cafe for a Turkish coffee and sweet. Got back to our hotel and got ready for the opera. There’s a good number of tourists that attend who don’t have formal attire, so I wasn’t out of place in my jeans and running shoes.

We were lucky to have bought our tickets for Aida the day before - our seats were excellent, 5th row centre. We really enjoyed the performance!

We had a late dinner at the hotel lobby bar to wrap up our Uzbekistan leg of the trip.

Overall, we really liked Uzbekistan. It’s very easy to travel independently now, all the old bureaucracy has gone away. I’m glad we went from west to east through the tourist towns. The Silk Road cities themselves are really impressive, and different from anything else I’ve seen so far.

Next stop: Beirut

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Our driver from Samarkand to Tashkent was ten minutes late because he got caught up in all the road closures with the South Korean president’s visit. But no worries. Said our goodbyes to Vlad and Firdavs and we were off.

Our driver was good, didn’t try to upsell us on anything, and got us to Tashkent just after 1pm. We stopped for gas along the way. In Uzbekistan, the passengers have to get out before the car enters the fuel pump, which we’ve experienced a few times now. I’m not sure the logic behind this.

In Tashkent, we stayed at the Lotte City Hotel. I think it was originally a palace. The staff were very professional, but also very bureaucratic. Their procedures still call for all the old paperwork that has been done away with recently by the Uzbek government. Our papers were in order, so no problem. It was the only trace of the old bureaucracy that we experienced in Uzbekistan.

We were hungry, so dropped off our bags and headed out for food. Heather had noticed a döner place across the street when we drove in, so we headed there. It was excellent, the pita was freshly baked and the toppings were fresh.

We thought about touristing for the afternoon, but decided to relax and plan out tomorrow instead. The city’s opera house was literally right across the road from us, so we bought tickets for tomorrow night’s performance of Verdi’s Aida . Had dinner at the hotel since it was raining out. It was okay; their draft beers were good.

Samarkand, Uzbekistan

We were in better shape than I expected in the morning, what with all the vodka toasts the previous night. It was excellent quality vodka, which helped.

Filled up at breakfast and then headed out in the drizzle. First, we walked back to Shah-i-Zinda. The mausoleums mostly face east, and my pics from yesterday had poor lighting. The wet ground and umbrellas added to the scene this morning. My iPhone was better than my camera for the lighting, with the bonus that it’s also waterproof. We were asked to be in a few pics, although this time by a group of older local women (otherwise it’s been kids asking).

Walked back along the pedestrian path (becoming familiar to us with the number of times we’ve walked back and forth). We were getting peckish, so stopped at a touristy restaurant near the Registan. We should have gone back to the same place as yesterday, as we were really just paying for the atmosphere (the food wasn’t very good).

After lunch, we walked down to the Gur-e Amir complex. By this point, we were getting out-mausoleum’ed, and it was just another (beautiful) blue-tiled big building. So, that was it for touristing for us in Samarkand. Really you just need a full day for the highlights. But if you want different lighting for pics, it’s best with an extra half day or so.

We napped for a couple hours after we got back to the hotel; yesterday was finally catching up with us.

For dinner, we went to the restaurant near Bibi-Khanym (I think that’s also the name of the restaurant). It’s frequently recommended by b&b’s, and there were a few independent travelers there. The food was pretty good, but their beers weren’t completely cold.

Walked over to the Registan for some night pics. The last ticketed entrance to the madrassas is at 7pm, then they allow an hour for the stragglers to leave the plaza. So, between 7pm and 8pm, it’s possible to enter the plaza for 270* pics.

Along the way to the Registan, we ran into a couple from our hotel in Khiva. We had bumped into them a few times in Uzbekistan, and we wondered why we hadn’t seen them recently. They had just arrived in Samarkand, and, unfortunately for them, the Korean president was visiting the next day and the sites would be all closed. They had plans for a couple day trips and were okay. We had noticed the preparations for what we assumed was a high-ranking Korean contingent, but hadn’t realized it was the president. I guess we could have googled instead of waiting to bump into someone who had the news.

We got back to our hotel, packed up most of our packs for our departure tomorrow morning to Tashkent, and went to bed.

Samarkand, Uzbekistan

We were up at 6:30am, had breakfast by 7am, finished packing up, and were on the road by 8am. Next destination: Samarkand!

Our driver ran a bit of a milk run before leaving town, dropping of packages along the way. We still made good time, though. There were a couple of smaller ruins right beside the road, about an hour out of Bukhara, but we declined as our main goal was to get in as much touristing in Samarkand today with the sunny skies.

We switched drivers about halfway, which was a convenient pit stop. Our next driver was already there waiting for us.

We arrived in the outskirts of Samarkand just after noon. Our route took us past a couple of the main sites, including the Registan, which looked ginormous from the car.

Our driver had some difficulty finding our hotel, Rabat Boutique Hotel. We asked for directions in a couple places. We had the phone number for the place, but I had typo’d it, so the driver couldn’t get through. Heather looked up the number on our reservation and we realized the typo; the driver called and got through, and we finally found the place right where google maps said it was. (Later we saw the signage for the hotel on the 2nd floor level, just out of view from our car window.)

The owners, Firdavs and Vlad, were super friendly. The hotel itself is a lovingly restored hundred-year-old former Jewish merchant house. It had even more character than our hotel in Bukhara. Our room had a waiting room overlooking the common areas, and then a bedroom, both retaining much of the original build. The bathroom, however, was completely new.

We got some lunch recommendations and then rushed out.

Our hotel was less than a ten minute walk to the Registan, one the top highlights in Central Asia. The scale is enormous, three large madrassas surrounding a square. It’s the most impressive site I’ve seen so far on this trip.

Took some pics and then dropped into a local restaurant for lunch. Had the soup, which was really good, along with a salad and bread.

Then back to the Registan. Bought our tickets and entered the square. The centre madrassa has a mosque with blue and gold ceiling that’s pretty cool.

Most impressive, though, is the scale, which is best viewed from the viewing platform rather than up close.

Next, we walked over to the Bibi-Khanym Mosque. The are 30-foot wide pedestrian walkways between the major attractions here, which are great. The path to Bibi-Khanyn reminded me of the walkway to the Colosseum in Rome, it has the same direction and feel. The walkway was filled with local and regional visitors.

Bibi-Khanym is big. The cupola of the mosque is 41m, which was the biggest mosque at the time it was built. (The highlights in Samarkand were built by Timur the Great starting in the 14th century. Timur’s empire ranged from Istanbul to Delhi). It was peaceful in the centre courtyard.

The last highlight of the day was also the reason why I originally wanted to see the Silk Route, the avenue of blue-tiled mausoleums of Shah-i-Zinda. We walked over and bought our tickets, including a camera pass (although unlike Egypt, no one asked to see the camera pass after).

The avenue is stunning, one of the top things to see in the world. The view from the innermost shrine, the entrance which frames the avenue, is amazing.

I took a million pics and then we headed back towards the hotel. Stopped by the Siob Bazaar, just behind Bibi-Khanym, got some pics of the mounds of sweets and nuts, chatted briefly with the friendly vendors.

Back at the hotel we cleaned up. We were planning to head out for dinner when Vlad kindly invited us to join them for dinner, as his mother was visiting from Tashkent and he was cooking a feast. We accepted and he said dinner would start in about 30 minutes. That gave us enough time to walk over to the Registan to get some sunset pics.

When we returned, there were a couple of other guests already seated around a square table. We joined them, along with Vlad, Firdavs, Vlad’s mother, and a couple other friends of the family. Vlad explained the different parts of the meal, and translated any questions for his mother.

Before we ate, we had a toast with vodka. Vlad gave the toast, and then we waited to see if this was a sipping drink or a shot. Vlad showed us how he drank - breathe out, drink the shot of vodka, a couple sips of a chaser, and then breathe in. The chaser was up to the individual, a choice between tomato juice, a yogurt-like drink, or apple juice. We stuck mostly with the tomato juice.

So far so good. Then Vlad said we would toast three times over the course of dinner. Again, not too bad, especially with all the food we’d be eating.

The appetizers included a tomato and cucumber salad, cauliflower lightly breaded and fried, a broth from the meat, Samarkand bread (a denser bread than we’ve had on the trip in Uzbekistan so far) and a few other things.

It turned out that we (us four tourists) each gave a toast. Vlad, Firdavs, and Vlad’s mother also toasted at separate points, too. A bit more vodka than we had planned...

The main course was a large platter of meat-stuffed peppers in a tomato sauce. It was excellent!

After dinner, Firdavs made us some herbal tea, and we chatted away the evening. It was really cool to have an authentic dinner experience. It was an amazing start to our stay in Samarkand!

Bukhara, Uzbekistan

The Lonely Planet said you need two full days to see Bukhara, so we were excited about our second day, given that our first day was pretty cool.

First, though, we went back to our favourite viewing spot for pics of Kalon Minaret with the morning sun. Had a tea to justify going into the restaurant.

Chatted with a couple traveling with two young kids. They were going east to west through the Silk Road cities (the more common direction) and said that after seeing the Registan in Samarkand, the size of the structures in Bukhara was a little less impressive, although still cool to see. So, maybe it’s lucky that we’re going west to east (a result of us visiting Turkmenistan first).

Many of the tourists we’ve seen have been local or from the region. We haven’t seen too many foreign tourists, just a few groups from France, Germany, Spain, and Russia. Of the more independent foreign travellers, we’re starting to see the same people in town to town, which is also common in countries where there’s a gringo trail that everyone follows.

After our tea overlooking the Kalon, we walked to the sites just east of our hotel. We passed through the main square, Lyabi-Hauz, where most of the hotels are clustered. It’s accessible by bus which makes it easier for tour groups. The Amelia Boutique Hotel is in the middle of these hotels. It was our first choice when we booked back in December, but it was full. Based on the location, though, we’re glad we didn’t get in, and instead ended up at Komil’s.

The route to Char Minor, the main site on our list today, was through winding residential alleys. About five minutes in, we arrived at Char Minor and were surprised at how small it was. It had historical significance as a gatehouse to a former medressa (although compared with some of the other sites here, it wasn’t overly impressive). It was nice, but I wouldn’t rate it in the top four things not to miss in Bukhara, as the Lonely Planet does.

By now it was 11am, and we had seen all that we wanted to see in Bukhara. We still had the rest of the day and most of tomorrow to kill, as our train for Samarkand wasn’t out until late afternoon. Tomorrow’s forecast for Samarkand called for sun and then rain for the next few days. So, we decided to book a taxi for early morning the next day so that we’d have the afternoon of good weather in Samarkand.

Had lunch at a random place close to the second covered bazaar. It was one of the better restaurants we’ve eaten in Uzbekistan (and I don’t even know what it was called :( ).

Then, we did some souvenir shopping, grabbed a double espresso on a patio and people watched, and generally whiled away the afternoon. Made a reservation for 8pm at Minzifa (the place we couldn’t get into a couple nights ago).

Towards 7pm, walked by the clothing store to pick up Heather’s order, and then on to the Kalon Minaret for a beer and our last view of the square. It was busier this evening (a big tour group from Spain also discovered the spot!), but we got the last table on the top floor patio.

After sunset, walked over to Minfiza for dinner. It was still packed at 8pm. The food was pretty good.

Got back home and packed up as we were leaving early the next morning for Samarkand.

Bukhara, Uzbekistan

It was still drizzling when we woke up. The breakfast buffet was busy; I think there was a group eating at the same time.

It started to rain harder as we got ready to head out, so relaxed for a bit more in the room. Eventually, we headed out in the drizzle.

Got to the Kalon Minaret and then realized I forgot my camera in my big pack, so we went back to the hotel to grab it. Fortunately, it was only a ten minute walk.

Today, we went further west to the Ark. This is listed in the Lonely Planet as one of the top sites in Bukhara. It has historical significance, but we didn’t find it as interesting to see.

We wandered back through the pedestrian-only areas and through the souvenir shops. It’s a very low pressure sell here, which is nice.

Went for lunch at a restaurant close to our hotel that was so busy last night we couldn’t even get a table. The food here was much better than the place we went to last night for dinner, and the atmosphere was nice on the 2nd floor terrace. We weren’t in a rush after lunch, so had a Turkish coffee and an assortment of local sweets. It was way too much sugar, but we wanted to sample a bit of each. Our favourites were the ones that tasted similar to sesame snaps except way better.

We stopped in at a clothing store where Heather ordered a custom made silk dress and skirt. It’s commonly done here. You pick the fabric, they take your measurements, and the next day (or within hours, but then they’re rushing) your garment is ready.

I wanted to get some more pics of the Kalon Minaret, so we walked back. I was looking for a place with an elevated view of the square for better pics. There’s historical buildings on three sides of the square, and the fourth is boarded off for construction. Then, we noticed a few tourists on the 3rd floor of a building inside the construction site. I zoomed in with my camera, and it looked like a restaurant!

So, we walked towards the building, and, sure enough, there was a small door with signage for the restaurant! Time for a beer :) We walked up to the 3rd floor, where there was a great view of the square, ordered a beer each, and clicked away. It was a perfect place to relax and end the day. It’s almost felt like a secret place - there was only one other table of tourists. Our waiter suggested we get some nuts to go with the beer (‘pastiche’). He showed us how to open them using a half shell.

It was still cloudy and not much chance for sunset colours, so headed back to the hotel around 5ish.

We had booked dinner at our hotel for tonight, partially because of the great reviews of the century old dining room. The atmosphere was great, tall ceilings, the courtyard lit up, local music playing. We were the only ones dining (you have to give them notice and pre-order), but it was still cool. The food, however, was just average, a bit disappointing given the care they take for everything else. Anyway, I’d eat there once for the experience, but not twice.

Bukhara, Uzbekistan

We had arranged for a private car and driver through our hotel in Khiva to take us to Bukhara, about six hours away. I booked a car with a/c even though it was only a high of 22C (figured a/c was a proxy for overall car quality).

Our driver was ready and waiting for us at 9am. Shortly after getting on our way, our driver tried to upsell us on side excursions. We didn’t really have any plans for the afternoon in Bukhara, so agreed to visit one of the old adobe qalas (forts) northeast of Urgench. There’s about twenty or so qalas in the surrounding area, being restored with help from UNESCO.

So we drove to Ayaz-Qala. The rain has eroded most of the fort, and you need some imagination to see what it would have looked like back in the 7th century when it was built. It was a good way to get some exercise (it took us about an hour to walk up and around), and only added 1.5h to the drive, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it.

The road from Khiva to Bukhara is in amazing shape, a divided highway with two lanes in each direction, except for the last 100km, which is a potholed dirt road.

We stopped at a packed roadside restaurant for lunch. All the locals were having a stew-like meal, so that’s what we ordered (based on menus we read after, I think it’s called shourpa). It was very tasty and filling.

We arrived in Bukhara just as it started drizzling. At least our driver was familiar with our hotel, Komil Boutique Hotel, as it’s down narrow alleys and hard to find.

The reception couldn’t find our reservation at first, and we briefly had bad memories of our excursion in Tigray, Ethiopia, but then they found it.

The hotel is a renovated former merchant’s house in the old Jewish quarter with lots of character. The ceiling in our room is at least 13’ with massive wooden beams. A maze of hallways and small courtyards lead to our room from the lobby.

We would have preferred dinner in the hotel so not to have headed out in the rain and muddy alleys after the long drive, but they needed advance notice to prepare. The wifi in our room was spotty, so we used the LP for restaurant recommendations *gasp*.

We ended up at Saroy in the main square (Lyabi-Hauz). Our apprehensions about LP recommendations proved valid yet again. The food was at best average, and most tables questioned the bill totals, including us. Anyway, it was food.

After dinner, we went for a short walk. The centre is all paved / cobblestones. We ended up walking by many of the sites we wanted to see, including the Kalon Minaret, the main highlight of Bukhara. There was a small group of 12 people taking pics, but once they left, we had the whole square to ourselves. It was pretty cool to see in the rain, as the minaret was fully lit and reflected by the wet ground.

Walked back to the hotel through the rain, and without slipping in the mud (for the last 200m or so).

Khiva, Uzbekistan

Today we had the full day to see Khiva. I got up at daybreak to get some pics of sunrise from our hotel’s rooftop terrace. There were clouds on the horizon, so there wasn’t much colour. A group of people were watching the sunrise from the West Tower, and a couple of other photographers were on other hotel rooftops.

Breakfast at the hotel was good, a sour yogurt, some fresh cheeses, and an omelette (including dill, which is a very popular herb in Uzbekistan and appears in almost everything). The tea was pretty good, too.

The chairs in the dining area were the largest I’ve ever used. They were like thrones.

We were out touristing shortly after 8am. Decided to randomly find things in the old quarter rather than follow a map, although we did start at the east end, so the sun would be in the right direction when we climbed the minarets (we had bought the VIP ticket which included these).

The actual sites in the old city are mostly various museums housed in former madrasas (schools). My favourites were the minarets because of the views from the top. The climbs are up steep spiral staircases, with people passing in both directions. The top of the minaret can get crowded. The first one we climbed in the morning was pretty empty; the second one, later in the afternoon, barely had any room at the top to stand.

Because it was Sunday, the old city was crowded with school kids from the city and surrounding areas. It’s free for kids on Sundays, and it’s great there are so many school trips here. We were asked to be in a lot of pics with kids from non-touristy places that don’t see many foreigners. Once one kid asked from a group, then all the rest would follow. Anyway, if you’re on Instagram, maybe you’ll see us! (Heather - for some of the kids, it was also a good way for them to practice their English with us. They were all really polite and nice kids :))

Our 2 day ticket for Old Khiva got us access to about 17 sites. We hit about 14 of them in our random touring, and didn’t bother trying to find the remaining ones.

The traveler we met at the gas crater in Turkmenistan (Judy) had recommended a vendor in Khiva that had quality fabrics. We actually found the vendor and ended up buying a couple silk/cotton scarves. I also picked up a silk cocoon as a souvenir.

We finally found the path to walk along the West Wall (it’s at the North Gate). The terrace from our hotel room faced the walkway, and, from our room, we saw people walking on the wall. The views on the wall itself, though, weren’t that great; there were lot of antennae in the way. We had better views from our hotel rooftop.

Tonight we had dinner at our hotel rooftop. It was much colder and windier than yesterday, but we stuck it out, and got some great pics as it got darker. Finished our drinks inside for the warmth and wifi.

Khiva has a compact old city centre which makes it easy to walk and see everything. It’s a little sterile, but it’s beautiful, especially wandering about at night.

Overall, one full day was about all the time we needed to see Khiva. If we had a second day, I’m not sure what we would do - probably just relax on a rooftop and catch up on reading or blogging.